Saturday, January 14, 2017

Bad Gift Exchange

So, the good news is that I didn't get a lot of presents this Christmas. The bad news is that, just about every present that I got, I really liked.

This means, unfortunately, that i didn't have much material for our annual Bad Gift Exchange, a party I host every January, where my friends and I share stories about presents, and we also share the presents themselves. This year's best stories came from a woman who brought a present that she'd given her mom, and which her mom handed straight back saying "I don't want this". (It was a high-tech wine bottle opener, and quickly claimed by another of my guests. Huzzah!)

I love setting up for this party; it's very low-key. This year I pulled out some bagels together with a few of my beautifully labeled jars (banana jam, pesto, and green-tomato chutney).

We also had a few bottles of wine served in my fancy crystal goblets (aka cup-sized canning jars).

For decoration, we had not only all the Christmas decorations around the house (to be taken down after and not before the Bad Gift Exchange), but also was has remained un-devoured of the Christmas-day Gingerbread house. I call this style, "Festive Remnants".

And so setting up for the party is super easy. The real joy of the party is exchanging stories and trying to get rid of the gifts we've gotten but don't want.

Many of the gifts people bring are really lovely gifts; they're just not something that the recipient wanted to have in her house. We all applaud when there's someone else at the party who truly wants that thing -- matching objects with grateful owners is just really satisfying. Like this beautiful tea set, which got to go to a home where it will be loved and appreciated.

The "Tater Twister" and the "Pregame Cooler" were not among the objects that somebody really wanted. They've sadly now found a home with me. My friends tried hard to convince me that the "Pregame cooler" would work well as a lunchbox because it holds canning jars, and I dubiously acquiesced to try, but I might just have to find a better home for this object (a gift, I might add, that has already been through several re-gifting parties. The Pregame Cooler has become somewhat of a social pariah). And when some of my friends said, "MiserMom, you could have a Twisted Vegetable Night", my daughters responded, "that's like every dinner at our house, but without the 'twisted'." I guess I do love my veggies.

But for me, the funniest gift exchange happened when one of my friends reluctantly pulled something out of her bag and said, "I don't really know if anybody could ever think of a use for something like this . . . " and almost immediately, my two daughters yelled, "The Money Dinner!". Which was exactly what I was thinking at exactly the same time. Of course for our annual April Tax Day dinner, we need to wear many gold bling dollar sign necklaces. Total score!

Miser Mom's Musings

About Me

Miser Mom is a mild-mannered, super-hero-wanna-be mother of [about] 6 children (some still at home and some who've grown up and moved out). By day, she teaches math at a nearby college. Her husband is not a miser.